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I had a previous attempt at Bishops Hill from Holl Reservoir...but turned back because the route led through a field of C-O-W-S. One was looking at me funny, so there was no chance especially not with three dogs! So, yesterday I decided to have a second attempt this time starting from Scotlandwell!
Parked up in the church car park, which only had a couple of other cars in it, and set off along the road soon finding the turning onto the path through the woodland where we climbed up and up and up...the views soon opened out, look fire in the sky!
As it turned out, this fire was mentioned in the paper this morning. Apparently, it is an upset at the chemical plant. But we didn't know that. The clear path climbed rapidly up the hill giving good views down to Loch Leven and across to the distant hills.
We soon reached the moorland, where we overtaken by a runner. I'm sure the dogs would have loved to join her...if it wasn't for this muddy distraction!
No, it doesn't bother me if my dogs get covered in mud, just as long as I don't get dragged in with them - which was very nearly the case as I had to reach down to unclip Moss' lead before I ended up having a mud bath as well because she did not want to get out! Luckily for me, the mud doesn't stick to them very well so I can rest assured that they will be relatively clean before we get back to the car.
Reaching the plateau, our target was in sight...but what were those brown things just below the summit?
Cows, it had to be cows. I could see they were behind a fence, so I continued following the path hoping against hope that the cows would be avoided. The views provided a little bit of a distraction, or should I say a bit of a delay?
The path led to a gate, which led into the cow field, and that was the way to the summit. All that was between us was the cow field. Fortunately, the cows were out of sight far away from the path so we headed into the field. We were overtaken by a second runner here, I convinced myself that runners were much more fun for cows to chase though we still hurried across and I was relieved to see the fence at the other side. Here though, we encountered a problem. To exit the field, we had to cross a stile. No problem for Moss who leapt right over the fence.
But Millie's age really became apparent here. Stiles are not normally an issue for her, but this one she couldn't get across. It didn't help that the stile was just some narrow bits of wood so nothing for her to climb up onto to get across, and there was no solid platform on the other side to put her down on if I tried to lift her across. There was no way I'd be able to climb the stile while carrying her without us both ending up in a heap.
- Don't leave me!
I checked the fence, hoping for a gap but it looks fairly new and there wasn't a gap anywhere. Millie was getting quite upset at this point. Moss was jumping up on the stile as if she didn't understand why Millie didn't just jump over like she did. I got Millie to put her front legs onto the stile, that way I was able to reach across the fence just far enough to lift her up and over. Phew! Both dogs now on the same side of the fence, and the summit was now ahead of us!
From here we could see the path we were to take passing above the crags. We followed the path, over the rise and we found the steep descent path. Below us we could see Kinnesswood.
Opted to do some bum sliding down the steeper bits, much to the amusement of the dogs, in other bits previous walkers had created a set of soil steps that made the descent easier. It felt like it was taking ages but it can't have been that long before we reached the path at the bottom that led us passed a golf course and along to Kilmagad wood. It was a pleasant walk through the woodland (owned by the Woodland Trust) to return to the path we came up on.
All in all, with the exception of the cows and the stile, which I suspect could be avoided by taking the path to the left to go up to the summit via the descent route rather than going through the gate into the field, this was a very nice, relatively quick walk. And it left us plenty of time to head to Glenrothes to restock on the dogs food with another stop in Dundee for another couple of bits!
